MAMA-OPE (Makerere University)

Mama Ope proposes to develop a cell phone based lung-monitoring device that could be used to radically improve the early diagnosis of pneumonia. The affordability and wide availability of cell phones make them an innovative platform for the development of simple medical diagnosis capabilities for use in the field. This is especially true in under-developed countries where skilled medical practitioners and their most sophisticated devices are often thin on the ground. The cell phone based prototype, coupled with specially developed cell phone applications, will make possible a detailed analysis and preliminary diagnosis of individual lung crackles through digitized audio obtained from the patient’s chest. To ensure that the lung sounds are of sufficient signal strength, the team intends to couple the cellphone to a modified passive stethoscope. In addition, the stethoscope will be embedded in a vest to ensure continuous monitoring. Since the recorded sound can be stored on the cell phone as a digital file, it can be sent later on for expert analysis through the cloud.